Music is a collection musical notes arranged by a composer to convey information and/or emotion to another person—one listening to the music. Each musical note is identified within the music by three pieces of information, the note's pitch, duration, and timing relative to the other musical notes within the music. A note's pitch is the frequency of the sound that one hears; not the unique sound itself. A piano and a trumpet can each generate a sound having the same frequency (pitch) but the sounds generated will not be perceived by a listener as the same. The sounds will not be perceived as the same because one sound is generated from a vibrating string (the piano), and the other sound is generated from a vibrating lip (the trumpet). A note's duration is the length of time that the sound exists. And, a note's timing is the temporal location within the music, i.e. when the sound is generated relative to when the sounds of the other notes in the music are generated.
Because music is a collection of notes that are heard by a listener, music is ephemeral—after the music is heard it's gone. To make music more permanent, and thus allow one to hear the music at a later date, such as centuries after the music was first composed, music is recorded on a more permanent medium. For many, many years the only medium available was a medium on which music was visually, not aurally, expressed, such as paper. Thus, a system or format for visually expressing music has developed.
Currently, the system or format includes a grand stave on which ovals and other marks are drawn to provide the three pieces of information that identify a musical note within music. An example of the current system or format for visually expressing music can be found in FIG. 1, which shows a well-known musical piece—Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star 10 and some additional visual expressions 12 for music. The conventional format shown includes a grand stave 14 which has two five-line staves 16 and 18, connected to each other, one for the treble clef 20, and the other for the bass clef 22. The conventional format also shows notes 24 (48 shown but only five labeled with a reference number for clarity) as ovals 25 (only two labeled for clarity), and rests 26 as a variety of marks. The vertical position of the each oval 25 in each stave 16 and 18 determines the pitch of the note 24, the horizontal position of each oval 25 in each stave 16 and 18 identifies when the note 24 is played relative to other notes 24, and a variety of marks 27 identify the duration of the note 24. Moreover, the current system or format groups musical notes into octaves, and includes seven different names (A, B, C, D, E, F and G) for twelve different pitches within the octave. FIG. 2 is a plan view of a portion of a piano's keyboard 28 and shows 3 octaves of notes 24 (FIG. 1) each of which is labeled with one of the seven letters.
This current system is a legacy from a period in time when the octave only had 7 notes (A-G) and 7 positions on the stave. Each note had its own name and position on or between each line. It was a logical design for 7 notes. The additional 5 notes where added later in history to accommodate more sophisticated harmonies but the system was not redesigned, thus giving us a stave and naming convention that was designed for 7 notes but tasked to handle 12 notes. Instead of renaming the notes and redesigning the stave, sharp and flat accidental symbols were used to augment the system. Thus leaving us with our current music notation system that uses 7 letter names with 7 positions to name and place 12 notes.
Unfortunately, the current system or format for visually expressing music can be very confusing, and thus learning to play and understand music can be more difficult than it really is. As shown in FIG. 1, an octave 30 of pitches spans a portion of each stave 16 and 18, not the whole stave. In other words, each of the staves 16 and 18 spans more than one octave but less than two octaves. Thus, for each pitch one has to memorize the location of the oval 25 in the stave 16 or 18 that identifies the pitch, and the location of the oval 25 that identifies the pitch's octave. In addition, within an octave 30 there are only seven specific positions in each stave 16 and 18 to identify one of twelve pitches in the octave. As sown in FIG. 1, four of the positions are located on the lines of each stave 16 and 18, and three of the positions are located in the spaces between the four lines. To identify the remaining five pitches a sharp accidental (#) or a flat accidental (b) is used in conjunction with one of the seven pitches. As show in FIG. 2, the piano key 32, when struck, makes a sound whose pitch is between C and D (the keys 34 and 36). This note is shown on the five-line stave 18 of FIG. 1 as the note 38 that includes a sharp (#) adjacent the oval, but could also be shown as the note 40 that includes a flat (b) adjacent the oval. Thus, each of the remaining five pitches within an octave (the black keys 32 and 42 in FIG. 2) can be identified by either placing a sharp (#) adjacent the pitch that is immediately lower than itself, or a flat (b) adjacent the pitch that is immediately higher than itself. Consequently, trying to read the music visually expressed in FIG. 1 to play it on the keyboard 28 in FIG. 2 (or any other musical instrument) can be very difficult and take much time and effort to do quickly and accurately.
In addition, to identify a note's pitch that is not identified by any of the positions in each of the staves 16 and 18 of the grand stave 14, one adds lines and spaces either above or below the five-line stave 16 or 18 to establish the position that correctly identifies the note's pitch. That is, each stave 16 and 18 includes positions for identifying a note's pitch within a previously established range of notes, and to identify a note's pitch that is not within the established range, one needs to add lines and spaces to the stave to establish the correct pitch-identifying position. This can be confusing if a piece of music includes notes from more than three octaves.
Also, the first position 41 in the bass clef's stave 18 identifies the pitch for the note A, and the first position 43 in the treble clef's stave 16 identifies the pitch for the note E. Because pitch-identifying positions for each stave are different when compared to each other, one must learn the pitch-identifying positions for both staves 16 and 18. This requires additional time and effort to learn, and can cause frequent mistakes in the note's pitch when reading the music.
In addition, the different marks 27 used with the ovals 25 to identify the duration of a note's pitch, or the duration of a rest 26, are not sequenced logically. For example, a whole note 27a is a hollow oval that does not include a staff 44; a half note 27b is a hollow oval that does include a staff 44; a quarter note 27c is a solid oval that includes a staff 44; and an eighth note 27d is a solid oval that includes a staff 44 and a flag 46. Similarly, a whole rest is a sold rectangle hanging from a line of a five-line stave; a half rest is a sold rectangle resting on a line of a five-line stave; a quarter rest is squiggle line; and an eighth rest is a staff with a flag. Because there is no logical pattern in the markings of the notes that identify duration, and no logical pattern in the markings of the rests that identify duration, one must simply memorize each of the markings and their associated duration.